The ACR Resident and Fellow Section

RFS Membership Committee Meeting Minutes: Nov 07, 2005

Member Participants

Joe Budovec, MD
Dan Entrikin, MD
Greg Galdino, MD
Ginnie Scroggins, MD

Unable to Participate

Ryan Christie, MD
Ryan Fajardo, MD
Amy Kirby, MD
Gregg Miller, MD
Yasmeen Qureshi, MD
Kelly Foster (ACR staff)

AFIP Housing Database
Ginnie Scroggins gave a brief overview of this important project. Surveys were distributed at two sessions of AFIP, with approximately 100 responses. Much interest was expressed by AFIP attendees, as many had positive and negative experiences with their housing. An electronic survey is currently being developed which will allow ACR members to complete the survey online. In addition, a "hard copy" questionnaire will also be distributed at future AFIP sessions. Members will be able to search the AFIP housing database according to a number of criteria. The hope is that resident ACR members will be able to find desirable, safe housing, while avoiding unsatisfactory locations. In addition, we anticipate the use of the AFIP housing database will increase traffic to the ACR RFS website, thereby increasing awareness of RFS activities.

Review of Resident Section of the ACR Website – Following the June 15th, 2005 Membership Committee conference call, the Membership Committee reviewed the current ACR RFS website and made recommendations for improvement of the site to the Executive Committee. In the subsequent months, the members the Executive Committee, Dan Entrikin, and the ACR support staff held several meetings and conference calls to completely redesign the ACR RFS website. This redesigned website represents a significant improvement over the preexisting site and includes many new features designed to increase resident and fellow awareness of issues facing our profession, and to improve resident education. These added features include:

An AFIP Housing Database
An online MRI teaching file for body, cardiac, and musculoskeletal cases
A series of educational articles on resident and fellow issues, and issues facing the profession of radiology, with an associated discussion group forum for each article
A Career Development section (discussed below)
Improved database for radiology fellowships
A Current Issues section covering “hot topics”, resident issues, government relations and economics issues
Resident testimonial video from the 2005 ACR Annual Meeting and Chapter Leadership Conference (AMCLC)
A greater number of links to other educational resources

In addition, the updated website will have vastly improved organization and navigational links. The redesigned website is slated for release at the 2005 RSNA, though some portions of the site remain a work-in-progress. This website will require regular review and updates. This responsibility will be the role of a new position within the ACR RFS Executive Committee, the Communications Officer, who will work closely with both the Executive Committee and the Membership Committee towards this goal. The position of the Communications Officer will likely be an elected position starting with the 2006 ACR AMCLC. In the meantime, a RFS member will be appointed to the position.

Contact Information for State Sections and Individual Program Representatives
Greg Galdino reported that he and Gregg Miller have completed their compilation of existing RFS state sections and individual program representatives. This list of contacts will serve as a resource to interested residents from around the nation who wish to get further involved with the ACR and the ACR RFS. Means to regularly update this list were addressed. Dan Entrikin suggested the possibility of utilizing ACR staff to send out yearly e-mails to the residents on the list was discussed, but it was felt that this might be limited by a poor response rate amongst residents. Alternatively, Greg Galdino suggested that the list be updated on a yearly basis at the ACR AMCLC. This regularly updated contact list may be added to the existing ACR RFS New State Chapter Resource Handbook.

Contact Book Publishers to Obtain Discounts for Radiology Residents
Joe Budovec discussed his interactions with representatives from several publishers of radiology textbooks. He indicated that the publishers had a limited interest in giving an across-the-board discount to residents for radiology texts. However, based on discussion with representatives from both Elsevier and Lippincott, Williams & Wilkins, Joe Budovec felt that the RFS may be able to obtain 10% discounts for radiology residents at various meetings (RSNA, Roentgen-Ray, etc.). He noted that at many of these meetings, residents are often already offered discount savings of up to 20% if a number of books are purchased at once (typically three or more). The publisher representatives made it clear that any special resident discounts would not be cumulative with other preexisting offers. The representatives also expressed concern that it may be difficult to identify which customers are truly residents, and therefore entitled to such discounts. Means of resident identification at such meetings were discussed, including distribution of coupons or other ID badges by ACR staff to residents, or some type of online authentication. At this time it remains uncertain if we will be able to obtain resident discounts, how much they may be for, and when such discounts could be acquired. Joe Budovec will update the Membership Committee as further developments on this matter occur.

Update of Resident Introduction Flyer
Recommendations of Membership Committee and Executive Committee members were conveyed to Nancy Cook (Sr. Director, Marketing, Communications & Public Relations for the ACR) and other ACR staff at a meeting held in Reston Virginia on July 25th, 2005. Resident representatives at that meeting included Dan Entrikin, Amy Kirby, Maryellen Sun, and Sanjay Shetty. Our recommendations emphasized increased information on the ACR RFS and the new website, as well as updating graphics to better reflect modern radiology (i.e., more images of advanced imaging, people at PACS, less of plain films, etc.). An updated text for the pamphlets was distributed by Nancy Cook via e-mail on September 27th, 2005. Changes to the text at that time were minimal, but included addition of Case-In-Point to the learning resources section, and mention of the new RFS website with the new AFIP housing database and discussion group forum. Graphic updates are still pending. In the September 27th e-mail Nancy Cook also announced that the ACR intends to generate an additional pamphlet to be distributed to 4th year radiology residents, in an effort to “provide a more comprehensive picture of the ACR and predispose these members-in-training to become dues-paying members once they go into practice”, and she asked for feedback “on specific areas / benefits of the College that should be incorporated into the 4th year marketing piece.” Greg Galdino reviewed the feedback that he provided to Nancy Cook which included the addition of information on career development, hot-topics facing radiology (such as self-referral), resources for review prior to oral boards, and information on maintenance of certification. Dan Entrikin indicated that he would contact Nancy Cook to obtain a draft of the 4th year flyer, which could then be distributed to members of both the Executive and Membership Committees so that additional feedback could be given.

Career Development Section
Though Ryan Fajardo was unable to take part in the conference call, his preliminary work on this project was conveyed via e-mail to Dan Entrikin prior to the call, and was briefly summarized. To this point Ryan Fajardo has had limited success obtaining articles on career development which the authors will allow to be reproduced on the ACR website. Dr. Fajardo asserted the importance of posting useful articles as resources on the updated RFS website, rather than simply supplying links to resources, or posting recommendations for books to purchase on the subject matter. He provided a preliminary list of topics he felt to be of most importance which included:

Immediate post-residency plans: fellowship vs. academics vs. private practice
Contract negotiation
Early years of practice: adapting, partnership issues, etc.
Long-term financial considerations: malpractice coverage, retirement, etc.

Additional topics of importance were discussed by the committee, and both Greg Galdino and Dan Entrikin indicated that they had access to resources covering a wide range of useful subjects that would make excellent additions to a career development section of the new website. As many of these resources cover issues that are of general knowledge (i.e., are not proprietary in their basic content), it was the consensus of the committee members present that we should gather and review our existing resources and create new summaries of the information for use on the website. Additional means of obtaining useful information and resources such as consultation with the ACR’s legal staff on legal issues, or consultation with financial planners on financial issues, may also be considered in the future. As well, Ryan Fajardo mentioned in his e-mail the possibility of utilizing a discussion group forum to address some of the issues. In the near future, this may warrant additional consideration, as the new discussion group forum section of the updated RFS website may be an ideal arena for such deliberations.

AFIP
Joe Budovec stated that he recently returned from AFIP. While there, he was disappointed by the perceived relatively poor representation of the ACR to the residents attending the session. The additional members on the call echoed his sentiments based on their experiences at prior sessions of AFIP. Dan Entrikin mentioned that the RFS has previously identified this weakness in the ACR’s attempts to gain resident interest and involvement at AFIP, and that several efforts were underway to improve the current situation. These include the development of a resident and fellow video documenting the impressions of resident and fellow attendees at the 2005 ACR AMCLC in Washington DC. This video will debut at this year’s RSNA, and will be shown as an introduction on future ACR days at AFIP. The group discussed the possibility of a more organized effort at the 2006 ACR AMCLC to get resident testimonials on tape. This may allow the RFS to acquire more focused and polished testimonials that could be obtained in an organized fashion with the goal of incorporating these testimonials into a predetermined video script. The question was raised as to whether or not the ACR would provide additional funding for such a project. This will likely depend upon the perceived success of the initial resident video. The committee also felt that the RFS should provide a concerted feedback to the ACR leadership about additional ways to improve the ACR days at AFIP. One such improvement would be to have resident attendees at each ACR AMCLC volunteer to speak to the group at AFIP, as this has been done during several sessions during 2004-2005, and has met with a positive resident response.

Action Items

Until appointment of a person to the role of Communications Officer on the Executive Committee, the Membership Committee encourages all members of both the Executive and Membership Committees to regularly review content on the updated ACR RFS website. They should notify ACR staff of any problems with the site, and volunteer recommendations for improvement of the site for future discussions.
The current contact information for state representatives will be updated yearly at the ACR AMCLC meeting. The current document can then be posted on the RFS website and included in the membership handbook as a reference.
Joe Budovec will continue his efforts to obtain publisher discounts for radiology residents at meetings, and will update the Membership Committee when future progress has been made.
Dan Entrikin will contact Nancy Cook to obtain a draft of the ACR flyer to be sent to 4th year radiology residents, and will distribute it to members of both the Executive and Membership Committees to obtain their feedback. This feedback will be summarized and submitted to Nancy Cook and the ACR staff.
All members of the Executive Committee and Membership Committee are encouraged to make content recommendations for the Career Development portion of the new ACR RFS website. Their recommendations and any resources that they may have should be sent to Dan Entrikin for review. Once a set of topics has been defined, a list of these topics will be distributed to members of both committees, and members will be encouraged to select topics that they are willing to work on. The appropriate resources for each topic will then be distributed to each member to aid them in generation of original articles/summaries of topics which will then be posted on the Career Development portion of the website.
In an effort to improve resident perception and participation during ACR days at AFIP the Membership Committee recommends the following. All members of both the Executive and Membership Committees should consider ways to improve the ACR days, and send their recommendations to Dan Entrikin. These recommendations will be compiled and redistributed to members of both groups, with a draft of a consensus statement about these recommendations to be submitted to the ACR leadership. This consensus statement would then be submitted to the ACR leadership after review, revision, and approval by the Executive Committee.
In addition, it is the recommendation of the Membership Committee that at each ACR AMCLC a group of volunteers willing to speak at upcoming sessions of AFIP should be obtained. Attempts should be made to obtain volunteers for each AFIP session.

Meeting adjourned at 10 PM EST

Meeting minutes submitted by Dan Entrikin on November 14th, 2005